


academia

by peachyteabuck



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mentions of Ableism, Multi, Skinny!Steve, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:08:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachyteabuck/pseuds/peachyteabuck
Summary: you’re a queer theorist interviewed by the new york times. bucky and steve are supportive boyfriends.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Reader
Kudos: 15





	academia

**Author's Note:**

> so, full disclosure, i wrote the majority of this over two years ago and unearthed it while cleaning up my dropbox. i’m posting it because i want to get it out of there without deleting it. i don’t really like this now, but i think it’s good to look back on how i used to write/how far i've come.

The email you’re reading from your phone is way more intimidating than it should be. It’s not the email itself which is intimidating. You’re an academic, a queer theorist, a teacher, a writer, a designer. You get emails all of the time, most of which you can answer without a hitch. This one, though, is…it’s something else. It’s something you’ve never really encountered before. It’s not even the beginning of some thread that you can blow off as something that was “accidentally” filtered into your spam folder. No, this was something you had to answer, and answer soon.

_We’d love to interview you for our podcast about people in polyamorous relationships! The goal of our project is to-_

Blah blah blah. The rest of the email doesn’t really matter. The way the exchange had started was some startup magazine looking for a writer who was willing to contribute an article about queerness and non-monogamous relationships. The pay was small, but everyone knows you’re a sucker for helping up and coming anything anyway, so it wasn’t something you really fretted about.

But this, this was different.

It’s asking about resolving arguments within closed polyamorous triads, and fights you’d had that had been resolved. One stands out among all the others, and it makes you uncomfortable even to think about.

_Bucky seems all too happy to stay, drink the free booze, mingle with other people in the gallery, all while elites in the art, communications, and astrophysics world chat the night away. He’s charming, suave, and his name is well-known in this gallery - Bucky’s been asked to guest lecture for the college it’s attached to several times. There’s even a rumor going around that he might be offered a tenured position. Steve, though, is awkward and reclusive in situations like this. Where Bucky is often a shining star in these types of situations, the other man is more like an image through an infrared telescope: interesting, yes, but only for a moment until the blurred shapes become dull and dissatisfying (or at least, that’s what he thinks he’s like)._

_Steve is much more reclusive with his obscure specialty. He mostly just communicates through emails and Skype calls - his disability never on display, his bitter personality hidden from the rest of the people in his field. Being here, in the open, is terrifying him to no end. Bucky is there, though, to make sure he doesn’t break down crying every time someone stares at his crutches._

_“How much longer?” Steve gruffs out. He may be a terrified small child on the inside, but he still needs to keep up his external murderous facade._

_Bucky looks over to you, watching you chat and laugh with artists and professors and critics and whoever else happened to get an invite to this event. The thigh-high boots you’re wearing should be ridiculously unprofessional for something like this, but you make them look impeccable. They accentuate your thick thighs and complement the all-black form-fitting cocktail dress well. You had this thing for statement pieces that Bucky had never quite understood, like every time you stepped out of the house there had to be some art piece on your body for people to marvel at._

_“You almost ready to leave, babe?” He can hear you ask Steve. You must have scaled the room while he was thinking._

_He nods, but doesn’t say anything. The champagne glass in your hands is almost empty, Bucky wonders why you haven’t gotten another one._

_“Just let me wrap up a few things and then we can go, okay?” you tell him before going off to speak with some other important people that neither man recognize. They don’t really know why they’re here (other than support you, of course). Steve’s specialty is in autoimmune disorders and Bucky’s known for disability studies - this gallery-whatever-thing is about communication and space and shit like that. There’s a good chance the lack of recognition is bidirectional, too, given that everyone who’s talked to the two of them has only addressed them as “Y/N’s partners.”_

_Is Bucky a shitty boyfriend for thinking about such an important night for you like that? Maybe. But you certainly don’t have to know._

_It’s another twenty minutes before you finally detach yourself from all of the people who want to talk to you, interview you, pick your brain about why you chose the pieces you did._

_When you finally join them by the exit, Bucky looks miserable, and Steve doesn’t appear much better. As you signal for a taxi, Bucky turns to you and leans his lips close to your ear. For a moment you think he’s about to kiss you, but then he whispers into your ear:_

_“I just don’t think I can do this anymore…”_

Bucky’s readjusting is what jolts you from the memory. He’d gotten up to get something (a glass of water to take his meds with, likely) and the feeling of his warmth under the thick duvet makes you want to melt into him.

“Baby boy,” you mumble, voice still thick and deep with sleep. “Can you go get the mail for me?” You’re comfortable under the covers while Steve is resting above them, his head on your hip. His head springs up as he hears his title with his collar still around his neck – never taken off from last night, and you fight the urge to tug on it. Wordlessly, Steve nods and wiggles himself from between you and Bucky in your large bed before moving to walk to the mailbox at your front door. As he passes you and reaches for someone’s sweatpants on the floor, he’s only wearing a tight pair of black boxers he probably snagged in the middle of the night.

Just before he moves to stand back up make you want to slap his tight ass. “Lookin’ good, babe,” you call.

Steve doesn’t say anything, but the blush makes his feelings on the matter clear.

“It comes today?” Bucky asks, wiping the sleep from his own eyes. He picks up his cracked phone from the night stand, the one with everything pushed as close to the bed as possible without it falling off. He groans as he reads the time, 10:30.

You nod, going back to checking your own phone. You’ve got the usual notifications: a few of your Amazon packages have shipped, someone wants an interview, multiple people want permission to use your writing in God knows what (according to the subject lines, an Advanced Placement test and some new state language assessment…those poor, poor kids). “Yeah, according to the tracking number they gave me, it was delivered last night.”

Right on cue, Steve comes back in with a large stack of large envelopes that are somehow each a different shade of white. Off-white, eggshell, ghost white, old lace, vanilla. Why were they all so different yet so similar?

Bucky’s cry of discovery interrupts your incredibly mundane train of thought. “I found it! Look, I found it!” Like a child on Christmas, Bucky holds a copy of TIME magazine with a wide shot of you on the cover. You have to admit, the photographer did a fantastic job. The headline - “POWER IN IDENTITY” - disappears behind you. The clothes you’re wearing are yours. You’ve worn them a bunch of times, actually, but now they seem different. The sweater is black with horizontal stripes on the cuffs, collar, and bottom hem - one you bought for an internship interview when you were in grad school. Somehow, it’s held up after all these years…

The pants are dark green and tapered at your ankles, the make you seem much taller than you really are. The simple grey background making the whole photo breathtaking and…and you have no idea what to say. You’re starstruck by the sight of yourself. Fuck that Narcissus guy, you’re the new lover doomed to starvation from a mere glimpse at your own image

“Babe,” Bucky’s voice is low, surprised; just as in awe as you are. “You look…”

“Hot as fuck,” Steve finishes for him.

“Not…hot,” Bucky corrects, his voice more stable now. “Powerful.”

Still silent, you slowly thumb open to your interview, and Bucky’s smooth voice narrates what might be the most important interview of your career. He reads as you thumb the pages, the low vibrations from his voice making the moment even more electric.

_They initially became famous in non-academic circles when a now-viral YouTube video of them arguing with Christian artist Cory Asbury on a small radio show in Las Vegas while Asbury was on tour and (Y/L/N) was attending a sexual education conference. It featured (Y/L/N) arguing with the artist arguing about hot-button topics sex and music._

_When I bring up the video and its impact, (Y/L/N) scoffed and rolled their eyes. “Everyone is obsessed with that video, which blows my mind. I mean, I’ve been saying stuff like that since my freshman year of undergrad,” they then shrug. “But, yeah. That video ended up getting me like, officially denounced from like my childhood church. So that’s a good thing. I waited years for them to like, officially do that.”_

_The comments (Y/L/N) made might not have blown them away, but it sure caused a lot of chaos online. Asbury was relaying his own opinions about sex and music, and spoke about how he felt most music was just about sex and how it felt like an old topic._

_“Anyone can sing about sex, but it takes a real genius to sing about thigns that are meaningful, you know?” Asbury told the host. If any of you don’t know, a core part of (Y/L/N)’s teachings is that sex is not inherently low-brow, and the absence of sex does not equal sophistication._

_(Y/L/N) strongly disagreed. “That’s bullshit. Total bullshit. And honestly, and Cory definitely knows this about me, I find that the laziest artist move to the other side of the spectrum when trying to make art. It’s one thing to follow the herd, it’s another to just turn back to where they came. Like, dude, we get it. We understand you didn’t get laid enough in college and now you’re super bitter about it. Just go to a fucking therapist or something, no one really cares about the lack of action your dick is getting. And you know what, you know what’s ironic? The songs that people say aren’t about sex end up being extremely erotic. Do you know many orgasms I’ve had to songs that had nothing to do with sex?”_

_The interview went on for five and half more minutes, but none of that really mattered to the three million Twitter, eight million Instagram, and twenty million YouTube viewers._

_“I was, for lack of better words, thrust into the spotlight,” (Y/L/N) laughs at their own joke before continuing. “That was a real turning point in my career. I’ve been doing fashion since I was a sophomore in high school. I’ve been writing since I was eleven. I’ve been a professor for, what, ten years? And I’ve never been a household name. Now pretty everyday people know my work and discuss my theories. It’s pretty dope, really.”_

_In their studio, they show me a small, white bookcase with what can best be described as “fan art” neatly organized in what looks like a photo on The Container Store’s website. They let me see a few of their favorites, including a beautifully hand-embroidered patch in a design described in their dissertation for their gender studies doctorate. Within the dissertation, they detailed the difference in unpaid labor between cisgender men and the rest of society._

Steve’s groans interrupt the other man. “Can’t we get to the parts where they talk about us?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, looking for a mention for either of their names.

_(Y/L/N) sees the world much differently than I do, or anyone I’ve ever met does. They see both the world around us for what it is and what it could be, constantly thinking two steps ahead of the rest of us. It’s especially obvious in their studio. The large, light blue-painted room is located in their home in the suburbs of New York City, where they live with their wall-eyed, three-legged cat named Dizzy and their partners James “Bucky” Barnes (a disability studies professor and linguist) and Steve Rogers (SciFi writer and physician specializing in autoimmune disorders)._

_The academic power thruple-_

Bucky snorts. “Academic power thruple?”

You shrug, defending the young reporter’s choice of words. “I think it’s cute…Don’t you, Stevie?” You look down at Steve, whose hair you’d been petting since you started reading. He seems to content in his current state to reply, so you don’t push for his opinion. You stroke the shell his ear with your thumb as Bucky continues.

_The academic power thruple represents a side of queerness many of us don’t think about: non-monogamous, happy, doctors with three PhDs between them. Often, queerness is forced into the far corners of society - if it ever appears at all. Academia and queerness always appear when white men say they do, often in books inaccessible without a Nexus Uni account-_

Bucky stops reading. “I still think it’s dumb that they changed the name of Lexis Nexus. We get it, you want to change the design of your website. It doesn’t mean that you have to rename yourself.”

You roll your eyes. “Just read, you idiot.”

“Yeah, none of us need to hear about your beef with databases right now,” Steve mumbles into your stomach. You can feel his smile against your skin as Bucky picks up where he left off.

_…a degree in Post-Modern studies, and years of experience with gender studies. While most of Y/L/N’s work often can be categorized as “high theory,” their most recent book is more accurately described as a memoir for young, queer adults. Entitled “Mid Seams and Adams Apples: Defining Queerness,” it brings together LGBTQ+ issues, fashion, and their wonderfully unique voice to provide readers with the kind of autobiography we haven’t seen since David Sedaris._

_Additionally, the forward to the book, written by Barnes, is a wonderful ode to the outcast. Barnes - who is most well-known for his fierce anti-military activism while being a veteran - shows us a side of his partner the public rarely gets to see: one of unbelievable work ethic, stressed organizing sessions Y/L/N performs to keep calm, late-night calls with their editor, and hours locked away in their studio. Much of what they show the public is carefully selected in a way that only adds to their reputation as a professional, cool-headed academic. The forward paints us a picture of someone we can all relate to: someone with fears, someone with dreams. Mostly importantly, someone who can fail._

_“It was actually a love letter he sent me while he and Steve were at a disability conference in Brighton [England] that I was unable to attend,” They told me in a small cafe near their home. “Part of being disabled and dating someone abled is realizing that you experience time differently, which is something all three of us had to learn quickly. For me, it’s easy for me to get up in the morning and get to where I need to be. Steve and Bucky have to plan more, have to take differently routes because the one I take isn’t accessible to them or not go to events entirely because it’s just something that they can’t do. Plus with me being trans, I have to operate in a whole different reality. Gender affects everything that everyone does - no matter who says otherwise. When we started dating, it was…hard. We had our whole worlds shaken up, which was a good thing - in the end, at least. But at first it was a whirlwind of teaching one another how we lived and operated. Right before they both left_

_Between sips of coffee, they continue to tell me almost sickeningly-adorable stories about their less-than-conventional relationship. Tales of midnight cookies, mysterious stains on rough drafts, fixing simple grammar mistakes over the shoulders of a partner. With a support system like that, it’s no wonder Y/L/N has three PhDs (gender studies, communications, and astrophysics)._

Steve sighs happily. Normally, discussions of your relationships are Christian fundamentalist-leaning hatred-filled tirades. They never talk about the love, the intricate lives you’ve built together…it’s nice, heartwarming, to say the least.

“You want him to continue?” you ask.

Steve nods, continuing to cuddle into your side. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”


End file.
